Darth Plagueis and the passion of Shaak Ti
by sudooku
Summary: Darth Plagueis is all alone in his luxury apartment at Coruscant. To escape his loneliness, he asks Dooku to arrange a meeting with the young Jedi Master Shaak Ti. A grave event, which will influence the life of the Togruta forever. Especially when Starkiller comes around. This story is rated M for explicit sexual content.
1. A spontaneous idea

0\. Prologue

This story is the translation from German into English of my almost complete story "Darth Plagueis und die Passion der Shaak Ti" about Plagueis and Shaak Ti. It is based upon an event, which did not happen according to the SW-canon, though it is not contradicting either. But I found, that the meeting of Shaak Ti and Darth Plagueis fits perfectly into the canon of the now seven movies.

You don't need to read or to know the Darth-Plagueis-novel to understand this story, just basic knowledge of the films, maybe The Clone Wars, is absolutely sufficient.

My story will abide by the canon. It will cover events in the life of Shaak Ti from the two trilogies, The Clone Wars and some comics related to that series. There will appear scenes and characters from the novels "The Force Unleashed" by Sean Williams and "Aftermath" by Chuck Wendig, which covers events after the battle of Endor, as well. For Plagueis' live I will refer mostly to the events given in the novel "Darth Plagueis", by James Luceno. I will give the sources in each chapter in a footnote.

Thus the story itself will cover events beginning in the time of "The Phantom Menace" until after "Return of the Jedi" covering a span of about forty years.

Please feel free to tell me when you will find some contradictions in logic, events or other mistakes of mine.

All rights on the characters are to George Lucas, Dave Filoni and Disney.

I'm always glad about getting reviews. I hope you will enjoy the story!

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1\. A Spontaneous Idea

Lost in his thoughts, Darth Plagueis glanced on the grey disk-like vacuum-cleaning-droid, which almost for one hour ploughed his lines through that ample room of the gigantic apartment-complex covering the upper half of the Kaldani-Tower, which was the residence of the Sith-Lord while staying at Coruscant. He did not only dwell here, but he owned that apartment, like the whole Kaldani-tower, situated in the upper-class Manarai-District of the galactic capital-planet. Plagueis was about to empty the second glass of the heavy wine, which Master Jedi Yan Dooku has brought from his now more frequent travels to his home-planet Serenno.

Hego Damask did appreciate those little courtesies of the Jedi Master, who was ad odds with his order, very much. He and his apprentice did agree upon one fact: The ambitious and elitist Dooku was made for the Dark side indeed. It was only a matter of time, when he would be ready to bring the ultimate sacrifice, which would make a return to the Light side of the Force impossible. Then Dooku would be his, like Sidious already was.

He was gasping for air suddenly after a gulp through his nose hit the wrong pipe in his throat. He was compelled to take every food and beverage by his nose after that cursed assault of the Maladians twenty standard-years ago which did almost cost his life. Since that time he was compelled to wear that transpiratory-mask, which enabled him to breathe, but not to take up any food with his mouth destroyed during that assassination-attempt. Just in the last moment in time he managed to get the liquid from the wind-pipe into the gullet. Then he turned his attention towards the cause of his choking.

The vacuum-cleaning-droid had suddenly stopped his work and made strange noises. Such he hadn't done in the almost forty years in which he meted out his cleaning work in his apartment.

Plagueis put his glass of wine on a desk and stood up, to investigate the droid. Actually such was the duty of craftsmen but he liked to repair things. He lifted the droid to find a bunch of silvery hair right in the hoover-opening. Disgusted he removed the bunch in order to throw it into the waste-sucker in one wall of the room instantly.

Sure, since he was at Coruscant again and his human apprentice was often in his apartment, Sidious' hair was spreading all over the floor, the chairs and the sofas. Not that the destined chancellor would do his hair too often in his rooms. But it was the nature of human male hair to fall out at a certain age, especially at the age of Sidious of forty-nine standard years. Plagueis had informed himself about all these peculiarities before he had decided to take a human apprentice. Und some human hair laying around in his apartment was on of those things he was more than ready to accept, when in turn he together with his apprentice would rule the galaxy later.

He recalled yesterday, when he and Sidious stood at the window in their clandestine Sith-headquarter in the LiMerge-Building situated in The Works, an industrial district of Coruscant. The two men were peering towards the Jedi-temple – like they did so often. But yesterday something was different.

"That Togruta isn't looking bad, isn't she?" did Sidious ask his master with that mischievous glance in his pale blue eyes, while both Sith-Lords did watch with macrobinoculars the lightsaber training of the clueless Younglings and Padawans at the vast exercise ground of the temple.

"Who is she?" Plagueis asked his apprentice.

"Shaak Ti. Usually she is mostly with her Padawan at her home world Shili, as Dooku told me. It is probably an exception that she is attending the lightsaber training today", Sidious replied.

Plagueis hit the stingy feeling, that the benevolent look, he had bestowed on the tall red-white-blue Togruta, did not escape the attention of his apprentice. Next time he would cover his thoughts and feelings better. That was none of Sidious' business!

But now, alone again in his apartment, he contacted per comlink Master Jedi Dooku, to tell him his latest matter of concern.

"Greetings, Master Dooku", the tall Muun opened the conversation.

"Greetings to you as well, Magister Damask, in what matter I can be helpful?"

"As you know, the security measures in the light of the coming election of the chancellor at Coruscant are definitely higher than ever. And for there where already two attempts to take my life in the past, I would like to have a member of the Order in my apartment around to take care of my safety", he came straight to the point.

"Did you think of someone especially?" Dooku inquired, to make things right according to the wishes of his secret ally. He was aware of the fact, that the Magister from Muunilinst did actually have his Echani Sun Guard for such matters. But he did know also, that it was that Sun Guard which failed badly to safe the boss of Damask Holdings during those two attempts of murder in the past. It would surely be an honour for the Order of the Jedi, to protect that galaxy-wide prominent businessman for certain hours.

"Master Jedi Shaak Ti would be ideal", Hego Damask proposed.

"That should be no problem", Dooku replied self-confident.

"You may bring her tomorrow evening at five PM to my apartment. You know, where to find me", the Sith-Lord declared with high-handed easiness.

"Yours anytime", Dooku gave back and Hego Damask caught a generous smile in the blue three-dimensional image of the usually brown-gowned Jedi Master, hovering over his comlink.

After Darth Plagueis had ended the connection, he took another deep gulp from his glass of wine, watching the vacuum-cleaning droid being back at work again. Peacefully but steadily the plain grey gadget ploughed its way. What a nice template to meditate in front of or for carving out plans. But it did stop one time! And Plagueis hit the bad feeling that it soon would stop again. That anxious thought about the transitoriness and the apparently failure of that droid he deemed indestructible until now did sent a cold shiver done the spine of the Sith-Lord.

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Author's note: This chapter is about events taking place during "The Phantom Menace".


	2. Special mission in the Kaldani-tower

Shaak Ti was meditating when someone knocked at the door of her modest chamber in the Jedi Temple. She interrupted her meditation to call in her visitor, to see Master Yan Dooku who smiled friendly.

"May the Force bless you, Master Dooku. To what do I owe that honor at this early time?" She asked just a little bit irritated.

"You are chosen, Master Ti," Dooku said promisingly with his raspy voice.

"Is it not enough of a Chosen One, like your former Padawan brought to the temple recently?" She asked, twinkled to Dooku with her right eye, motioning for him to come in.

When she had closed the door behind him and Dooku, she offered him a seat and some tea. Dooku himself was not to be told twice. Then he took up the thread again.

"Now, not only I was of the opinion that the small Skywalker for the mission, which the Council has for you now, probably is a little bit too young," Dooku said with a slight grin.

"You make it exciting, Master Dooku," the Togruta replied with a reassuring smile.

"The point is to protect the investor and the member of the Intergalactic Banking Clan Hego Damask in his penthouse in Kaldani Tower on the eve of the election for the new galactic Chancellor. That mission starts this evening from five p.m. until next morning, when the election is opening."

"Oh ... it's an honor ... but since I'm already assigned to a mission that will take me to Rodia. I am already from four p.m. local time ..."

"Not anymore," Dooku replied with a sweeping gesture. "Master Yoda sends Master Jorus C'baoth to Rodia instead and you remain here on Coruscant and can guard Damask."

"Well, when Yoda has decided so, then so be it," Shaak Ti replied composed.

"Do not worry, my dear. Even in case that no attempt is made on his life, as feared, Hego Damask is a very interested interlocutor and thus this mission will be many times more pleasant for you than the trip to Rodia and back again", Dooku said elated.

"You dealt with him already, if I remember correctly," Shaak Ti tried to elicit her colleague some information.

"We have had some meetings at my home planet Serenno where Qui-Gon Jinn was also present. At that time we talked about the urgencies of politics and the future of the Republic. I wish there were more such clever predictive people like Magister Damask," Dooku said with a sigh.

"Is there anything, I have to be mindful of with him? I had never been personally involved with Muun", she asked the elder Jedi.

"No need to be worried about anything, my dear. Hego Damask is a cosmopolitan and knows the different species at least as good as many Jedi should do it actually. If anything, he will tend to you. I'll pick you up a quarter to five p.m. to bring you to him."

Dooku drank his tea, then was about to leave. While he was still standing in the doorway, Shaak Ti held him back.

"I've heard that your former Padawan did duel on Tatooine with a Sith. Now the Council has ordered him to Naboo. Do you think that this Sith will appear there again?"

Dooku saw the concern in her violet eyes.

"The Sith came unexpectedly, in fact. But Qui-Gon will not be there alone. His Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi is accompanying him. Against both that Zabrak will have no chance," Dooku said firmly.

"I hope for the two and for you. It would hurt me to see, that you would lose another Padawan by the Dark Side, "replied Shaak Ti.

"I know what happened to your Padawan a week ago. And I wish you with all my heart that such will not happen again to your next Padawan" Dooku said and Shaak Ti could feel the compassion and confidence that resonated in the voice of the more than seventy years old Jedi Master. On one hand, his words were solacing, on the other hand Dooku's words tore on old wounds.

On time at five Dooku brought his colleague to Hego Damask into the apartment. For a moment the Togruta was uncomfortable, as Dooku left her on the doorstep of the apartment of the businessman well known throughout the galaxy. Then she turned calm and composed again to meet her latest protection subject. As a Jedi she had seen many things, but at the sight of Hego Damasks transpiratory mask covering the lower half of his face, she felt alienated.

"It's nice that you were able to spare the time, Master Jedi," he began the conversation and Shaak Ti heard a metallic sounding voice reaching her hearing organ, which sounded half-natural, half droid-like. But she sensed also a certain warmth that went far beyond the performance of a protocol droid.

"Would you perhaps like a glass of wine, Master Jedi?" he offered.

"No, such would not be appropriate being on duty," she replied politely but firmly.

"I have non-alcoholic wine, which will probably be to your liking", he turned off her objection and immediately the faithful droid 11-4D rolled by to proffer the wine.

Shaak Ti looked interested on the droid with his four different arms. He seemed rather to be a medical droid than a mere mechanical butler. Nevertheless, she had an idea that the Muun with the transpiratory mask would need the droid possibly for many other things too. She let her eyes wander through the apartment. Dooku had brought her to the top floor of Kaldani tower in the fine Manarai district. From the large window on the right of her seat she had a fantastic view on the Western Sea. She remembered that the Nautolan Jedi Master Kit Fisto had once told her that he was here sometimes to swim and to dive.

She asked Hego Damask initially about emergency exits, other means of escape or about possible intrusion ways for enemies. This lasted about half an hour. Plagueis was impressed by the diligence the young Togruta did show to exclude any risk that someone would kill him in his own home. After this official conversation Hego Damask led to other, more entertaining issues. After they had talked for a while about Shaak Ti's home planet Shili and Shaak Ti did explain the ritual of the Great Hunt, after which a Togruta was declared adult, Hego Damask felt that his interlocutor thawed slowly. Time, to ask his guest a question about the Order of the Jedi:

"What is it like to train a Padawan?" He asked in a cheerful tone.

"My Padawan was killed a week ago," the Jedi Master gave back with downright icy voice. "How did that happen?" The Sith Lord asked curious.

"Gangsters killed her while I was elsewhere," the Togruta said with composed voice.

"A test that is part of the maturation of a Jedi Master in these difficult times, one might say," he replied with a trace of compassion.

"I wish all Jedi would see the matter how you do, Magister," Shaak Ti replied with an almost inaudible sigh in her otherwise stoic voice, which did not escape the attention of her counterpart.

"What do you mean, Master Jedi?" Hego Damask asked seemingly guileless.

"Can this stay in this room?" She asked him.

"Everything that is said and done in this apartment, will remain among us," he replied with a smile, which she perceived despite his transpiratory mask by the Force.

"Master Luminara Unduli shares my opinion, that we must accept the death of another Jedi as well as the death of one's own Padawan as a necessary sacrifice and examination, at which you should grow. Master Oppo Rancisis on the other hand uttered that I was too cold and too unconcerned because of her death and that would not be good for the cohesion of the Order if other Padawans noticed that. Master Qui-Gon even accused me of being selfish and lacking compassion. And this only because I had told him that during a hunt on Shili some Togruta are killed, then as now. And this is accepted as a natural selection of the strong. Too great sorrow over such a loss however is seen as a weakness in our culture. Only here in the Jedi Order, which has me but sent for a while back to Shili to familiarize myself with my own culture, my handling of the loss of my Padawan is criticized. That hurts", she said, her violet eyes sparkling vividly in this revelation of her feelings.

"Almost all living beings with a healthy survival instinct would share your view", Hego Damask elaborated on her complaint.

"But for a Jedi that's a contradiction," Shaak Ti said. "On the one hand, the strongest beings are chosen throughout the galaxy to become Jedi in order to pacify the galaxy and make it a better place. On the other hand always sympathy with the weak is propagated, even if those weaker subjects do not always earn this compassion or even help by the Order in my opinion," she added, encouraged.

The red-skinned Togruta wondered if the wine was really alcohol-free, as claimed by Damask, or whether perhaps just any other lock had opened inside her.

"My dear, have you already heard of the legend of Darth Plagueis?"

"No, never," Shaak Ti replied puzzled.

"Well, this is not a story that somebody would tell you in the Temple. It's a legend of the Sith", Hego Damask explained with a mysterious voice.

"Sith stories are told in the temple truly not too often," Shaak Ti admitted. "Well, tell me," she urged the Sith Lord who sat opposite her.

She was suddenly aware that she had grown accustomed to his metallic voice.

"Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise that he was able to save the lives of those who were close to him by the manipulation of the midichlorians. He was even capable to stop the aging process of those close beings."

He made a dramatic pause after these words.

"I am Jedi healer, but about stopping the aging process, I've never heard," Shaak Ti said stunned.

"After Darth Plagueis had killed his master, as it is with the Sith tradition, he was designed to be the Dark Lord of his order. And in this way he was looking for an apprentice. He found a young Nautolan, who was armed with a vibroblade and radiated the power of the dark side. This Nautolan told Plagueis that he had been trained by another Sith, which was, however, lost for some time. At the same day, the same place it happened that two Jedi were on the trail for this Nautolan, because he was wanted for crimes. Darth Plagueis considered it a risk for the Order of the Sith, when a wanted criminal would become his apprentice. So he asked the Nautolan to kill the two Jedi in order to prove himself being capable and worthy, while he retreated to watch the fight from a distance. The two Jedi found the Nautolan, killing him almost instantly. Darth Plagueis saw it as natural that the Nautolan who, armed only with a vibroblade, encountering two lightsaber wielding Jedi, perished in this bold endeavor. He did not grieve about his loss but sought instead a new apprentice", Hego Damask ended his narration of the legend.

"So you tell me, that I think like a Sith - at least in this issue," Shaak Ti replied with an embarrassed expression in her red, around the eyes white-tattooed face.

"No more, no less like other intelligent beings would think" Plagueis gave back, smiling.

"Do you know, Magister, sometimes I think that I should have done more lightsaber training with my Padawan. I wanted her first to learn to master the Force, before directing her to the lightsaber training. Sometimes I think that was a mistake. She was doomed. Just like this Nautolan having a vibroblade only. But what if I first taught her lightsaber fight and she would fall prey to other challenges because she didn't control the Force enough? I'll never know. Nor like Plagueis would ever have known, what could have become of this Nautolan, if he had stood by his side in the fight against the Jedi rather than just to observe."

"Well, we'll never know anymore in both cases. But we can draw strength from such feelings, no matter what people are saying when they noticed it since. The question is: Do you grieve about losing your Padawan, or rather about the fact that one accuses you of lack of compassion?"

"It is probably a mixture of both," Shaak Ti confessed.

"The edges of our galaxy are always rebellious and unpredictable. And despite the many force wielding Jedi fighters, they will not be sufficient in the near future to pacify the Galaxy permanently. The Jedi will need more military support on their missions", Hego Damask mused aloud.

"Do you mean about a regular army? The planets and systems have their own armed forces and need the Jedi only to mediation purposes. If there were, however an Intergalactic standing army, this would probably provoke more disputes, because certain systems would feel patronized if not threatened", the Togruta considered.

"Additional military forces would lead to more security. Even and especially for you and your next Padawan, so that you would not have to tackle all those many tasks alone."

"This is a promising idea, in fact. But from where do we take such an army?" She asked the Sith Lord.

"There are some concerned citizens, who would stand up for the funding and planning of such an army. And there are cloning facilities that would do an excellent job for the Galaxy, if somebody would just ask them."

"Would you even support such a project, Magister?" Shaak Ti asked Hego Damask and her violet eyes glowed again, revealing some red sparkles.

"Yes, I would," he replied with a naturalness that impressed the young Togruta.

"Did you talk about that with Dooku too?" She asked.

"Yes, among other things."

Meanwhile, it was getting late.

"Do you know, Magister, at the beginning your mask made me feel quite strange, but now it seems to me like a part that belongs to you," Shaak Ti said, elated after the fifth glass of wine.

"The philosopher Shassium said once, that everyone in this universe is condemned to wear a mask, whether be it visible or not. And not all beings are that privileged to have a retreat where they can drop this mask for a moment," Plagueis said on this rather dubious compliment of the Jedi Master.

"I know Shassium, however I have red only a little bit of him so far," the Togruta replied slightly melancholic. "I can lend you the related tome, when you like. You can later return it to me, where you are but so busy," he said, getting up to go to a bookshelf, where many precious bound volumes and tomes were arranged.

Shaak Ti noticed at this moment, what energetic movements her host did display while he went to the shelf to unerringly pull a book off there. The Muuns she had seen at Holo-transmissions from Cato Neimoidia or Muunilinst shuffled often powerless over the floor, their long thin arms hanging limply down from their shoulders, so that one had the feeling that all these Muuns spent all their energy on thinking or mathematical calculations related to, a trait for which their species was so famous in the galaxy. But now in this moment, when Hego Damask swung back with the thick red tome to give it to her, she saw that he had well-defined muscles on shoulders and upper arms.

"You do some sports occasionally, Magister Damask?" She asked him with a look on his upper arms as he handed her over the book.

"I have my own gym two floors below. That keeps me in shape," he said.

"Just to have a look on you like that, one might think that you could also very well defend yourself", she returned with an easy grace.

"If so, I would not need you today, Master Jedi," he replied with a shrug.

Lost in her thoughts, Shaak Ti flipped around a bit in the red book.

"It's already late. I hope that no disturbance will occur during the now beginning night. I have already shown you your sleeping place. I will now retire for the night", Hego Damask announced.

It had caused him pleasure, to have the Jedi Master this evening around. The sight of her was simply a delight. And Shaak Ti was so decent and conscientious. And almost totally devoted to her order's doctrine … almost … so that it was all but touching, if he does not know better what the Jedi was imminent. Shaak Ti looked at Hego Damask as he headed for the door. She was relieved, in a way that so far nothing unusual had happened. No one had tried to break into the apartment. She did not feel any other forms of life in the building but the two of them, at least not in this and the lower floor, nor on the roof which was above them. But something shouted in her then that this evening was still missing something. She flipped a bit more in the book. Suddenly she found the phrase she was looking for. ...


	3. Just this once!

"... Didn't Shassium say also, that all beings are divided by the Force and it would take at least one being to whom one can fully open and surrender to tear down that barrier?" The Jedi Master tore him from his thoughts, when he was about to open the door to his bedroom. Surprised by this question of the Togruta he swung back around to face her. Could it be that the Force did hear his silent prayers since yesterday afternoon?

"I'm afraid this question a Jedi is not allowed to ask. Even I as a businessman cannot confide in penalty of my downfall to anyone anything I know or wish. There are plenty of people just waiting for such a weakness," he replied seriously.

"I myself haven't found such a being yet, but I know that there is such a thing as soul mates plus physical attraction. If I project it roughly, I might come to fifty thousand beings in the galaxy. This is something little, huh, Magister Damask?" She calculated the possibilities.

"You think almost like a Muun, Master Jedi," Damask said with a smile, clearly perceptible for her now behind his respiratory mask.

"I believe that one should have loved at least once in a lifetime someone to reach his or her full potential. How do you think about that?" She asked him now directly, catching his serious look in the green eyes.

She noticed his inner hesitation before his reply. Now Hego Damask suddenly looked just as thoughtful and anxious as Master Yoda, while being confronted with a tricky problem. Stop! Had she just sensed something yellow flashed in his eyes? No, that was definitely only the reflection of the ceiling lighting.

"Theoretically you are correct with your bold thesis Master Jedi," he said, his words pondering. "There are three kinds of power. The Pneuma, the power of gravity, the physical power. Secondly the Aperion, the power of thoughts and emotions - in short, of the mind. And then there is the Anima, the power of generating life, which is accompanied by certain impulses and instincts. But to control all three types of power uniformly to use it altogether in harmony, only very few beings in the galaxy is possibly granted, …"

he stopped for a dramatic pause,

"... and certainly not a Jedi," he finished his sentence with some severity, which was exacerbated by the metallic sounding of his voice through the transpiratory mask.

Shaak Ti saw Hego Damask's tall slender figure, standing immobile at these words in the doorway. Something about his words provoked her.

"I'm not speaking about entering a long-term relationship with someone. But only for once, so that you at least may know what others talk and write about. That one has experienced at least this once, how it feels, to love absolutely and to be loved. Just this once! And then you go back to your usual way of life, consuming from that experience a life long, not being plagued constantly by the feeling of having missed something anymore," she heard herself saying.

Had she, the honorable Jedi Master Shaak Ti, just confessed to the businessman Hego Damask to believe that she had been missing something in her elite life as a Jedi?

"You mean a temporary materially tangible love that can be switched on and off again, depending on need and propriety? This is a very rational approach that will probably never reached by many beings in their imprisonment in a low existence," he said approvingly.

"So you agree with me?" the Jedi asked, while the compliment was running down as smooth as oil.

"I guess, such a question another Jedi who entertains similar thoughts and feelings, could answer much better than someone like me," the Sith Lord said pointedly modest.

"Another Jedi ?! Who is crossing my road all the time, talking about it with others, and perhaps could report to the Council? Never!" She blocked this possibility calm and decided.

"And on Shili? Since you're still often there?" He inquired.

"Surely not with someone of my own species!" She replied indignantly. "I would always be the better, because I am a Jedi, and he is not. Something that gives birth to jealousy, at least with men in our culture it is that way. And then he would demand also favors because I come from Shili as he does. This is again the pack thought of our earlier predator species. A bond would develop - precisely because of the same species and the same culture. I can not allow such in my loyalty and fidelity to my order," she said again with that stoicism which he so admired in her.

"But who then?" He asked.

"Someone, who is confident and attractive enough, but otherwise quite far away from my life. Someone, who is discreet and secretive because he expects the other one to be the same ... Someone like you!" She held spontaneously a hand over her rosy mouth after this confession, while her violet eyes glared at him.

Had she really just made Hego Damask an improper suggestion? Was in the alcohol-free wine still some residual alcohol? She had eventually read that even ordinary fruit juice would harbor a remnant alcohol content of about 0.5 percent. One may only drink enough of it ...

"Well, for that matter, so I'm just an old Muun who wouldn't know about that," he replied with fatalism in view.

"But you are... not more than fifty standard years old. At least in your annual classification. I thought that at your age life is just starting, isn't it? "The puzzled Togruta returned.

"You flatter me, Master Jedi. But with this mask and other related things I can not enjoy live as I did before."

"But the mask is still in front of your face. Not elsewhere more down," Shaak Ti replied with a reassuring smile. "And anyway ... The natural beauty is like the uniform pattern of handwriting, which runs through the whole of a being. And even if there should occur a deviation from this pattern subsequently, intelligent beings always will see and recognize the beauty which will never fade away," she closed her reply.

Hego Damask looked down at himself. He usually stood above comments like that from other people. But these more than flattering words, spoken by a very beautiful woman in front of him, invited to surrender. At least it should feel for Shaak Ti like that.

"Is that really your wish? Here and now?" He asked her, his eyes slightly lowered.

"If you had phrased that any differently, I would have denied out of hand. But … I want it. Here and now. With you," she replied softly, her gaze clear and steady when his eyes met hers again.

He closed the distance between them, took her by the hand and led her into his bedroom. Shaak Ti saw a big wide bed covered with a dark green blanket. Above the bed a high canopy was stretched. He sat down on the bad and said gently:

"Then you may take off my clothes now. And then I will take off yours."

She sat on the bed next to him to take off his head the ornamented cap, which identified him as a member of the Banking Clan. She saw that his head was bald under that cap - as with all Muuns. Her slender nimble fingers opened the brooch upon his chest, holding together his black cape with the audited shoulder pads. Then she opened the row of clasps of his long dark green tunic he wore over his undershirt and the tight-fitting black trousers.

Patiently and with sensitivity, she opened his tightly around the slim neck closing collar, then the cuffs, which were held together with aurodium buttons. After pulling the tunic over his head, she pulled off his black undershirt to see now a metal plate, which encircled his chest and the control box, which guaranteed the functions of his breathing mask. But beneath his armored chest she perceived a significantly pronounced six-pack of muscles, over which she slipped her fingers. Hego Damasks alabaster skin was soft and velvety. He neither had wrinkles on the face nor at the body. She wondered how old he actually might be. Then she started to work on the buttons and the zipper of his pants.

He got up to take off his pants and his boots by himself. After he had done that he told her to stand up from the bed as well. He went behind her. Shaak Ti felt his long rangy hands with the at Muuns overlong index and middle fingers at once completely enclosed around her narrow waist. She shivered pleasantly at this dominance gesture. Then he told her to lay down on the bed. His slender hands solved the broad band of her girdle made of the finest Corellian leather to place it carefully on a chair next to the bed. The lightsaber of the Jedi was still clipped to it. He just disarmed a Jedi! Just like that. Like defoliating a flower, he parted one by one the three layers of her brown, with subtle patterns adorned Jedi costume and put it accurately folded on the same chair. He took off her underpants.

Now the beautiful Togruta, laying before him in all her red-white-blue splendor, was his. His fingers traced in gentle movements on the white stripes of her body tattoos, caressed her shapely breasts, her circular also white tattooed highlighted cheeks. He stroked the two raised white-blue Montrals upon her head, which made the height of the Togruta almost the same like his. They were hard, but covered with a kind of fluff. While her two long also blue and white striped side-lekkus felt soft and warm. He took her right Lekku and fondled his cheek with it. The Lekku was covered with exactly the same fine fluff as her two Montrals on the head.

During the touches of Hego Damask, Shaak Ti glanced at the ceiling of the deep black canopy, which was stretched over the comfortable long, wide, almost square bed. At this deep black blanket small crystals were attached, which were arranged in a very specific form. Spiral arms went counterclockwise from a central pile of many closely packed crystals.

"So it looks like, when we call up a holo-image of the Galaxy in the cartographic room in the Jedi Temple in order to prepare a mission," she said with a smile transfigured.

"I, too, at this location occasionally prepare myself mentally before business missions. All these crystals I brought from my home planet Mygeeto" replied Hego Damask and could not help a smile behind his mask at her thoughts about the temple. She was so honest with him. She simply told him what she just had thought. He kept pensively her Lekku in his left hand to pat it with his right hand.

Suddenly he felt that something became long and hard more downwards. He groaned softly. He let go of her Lekku and his fingers touched her sensitive flesh. Shaak Ti had already become very wet. The time has come! He sat on her and sunk inside between her inviting thighs. Something tore in front of his penis. At that moment he realized that Shaak Ti had just given him her virginity. Slowly and with growing excitement, he began to move on and inside her while she held with her red hands his alabaster hands, with which he propped up on the bed straddling her.

Shaak Tis body was trembling gently, when with Hego Damask for the first time a man had gone into her. With each thrust she felt how she widened down more and more. She looked into his long face with the blissful half-closed green eyes and the bottom half of his face, which was covered by the transpiratory mask. She had to admit that she found it exciting that he wore this mask - especially now. This mask would help her to maintain a distance that would be important later to deal better with the feelings just being awakened in her. After a while she felt that Hego Damask's hand did massage slightly the nub at the beginning of her opening. As a healer she knew namely about the existence of these neuralgic spots of a woman. But she would never have had the idea to put hands on herself in this issue. And now it was a sheer sensation, when the hands of a man chosen by herself, did touch these points. Just like that she had always dreamed of. So it had to be!

With each thrust and every touch of Hego Damask Shaak Ti became hotter and more excited. She felt all her juices and energies flowing into their midst now. She closed her enraptured eyes and fell into a pleasant trance that already ... took at least half a standard hour? But it did not seem as if her playmate would be in a hurry. Slowly but steadily faster and faster, his loins did their work, while she perceived his slim toned figure above her only dimly in her ever more sprawling limbo about herself.

After a time seeming stretched indefinitely, she felt the tension in and around her center becoming unbearable. Unbearably sweet and hard.

Hego Damask knew that the moment of absolute truth was close. The waves of Shaak Ti's force-powers flooded increasingly against him. And there were no clear sublime, almost crystalline power lines anymore, as he had perceived from the Jedi to be her usual power presence before entering his bedroom. Now her force-waves did become increasingly harsh, unfocused, darker – the more Shaak Ti's passion took possession of her body and mind. And when he would come to climax himself, then he would not manage to hide his own force-presence so carefully anymore, as he had done until now masterfully in the many decades lasting secrecy as a Sith. There was only one way for him to circumvent this disclosure elegantly. He had to ensure that he and Shaak Ti would come to orgasm together.

At the same time the fearful thought came to his mind, if it was really a good idea to subject also the previously mentioned power of the Anima to his will, as he already did it almost perfectly with the Pneuma and the Aperion. Would the eternal life, sought by him so desperately, still be worth living when he would have snatched all secrets and powers from the universe subservient? Or would life become boring then? Was this fear of such an omnipotence possibly the first cause that prevented the Jedi from making the Force a mere beast of burden like the Sith craved, but to worship it instead in self-imposed limits only?

How many years he would still need to find out about the last remnant secrets of the Force? Could a single entity yield that at all? Even such a refined and advanced as a Muun like him? Or would he be approaching the final fundamental mystery of the Force steadily, while always to stay away a touch off it, just like a curve steadily approaching the horizontal x-axis of a chart, being condemned in a near-parallelism never to reach this axis?

But now Hego Damask felt, that it was time to push these in his order heretical thoughts aside. There would be enough time later … when he ...

Hego Damask felt that his partner suddenly stopped during his ongoing pushes. Then Shaak Ti shuddered briefly. He gave himself two more standard seconds, then he sat free everything he had for Shaak Ti at this moment. His hot juice squirted into her as he moaned loudly, her body jerked upward and she wrapped her arms around his body, while her head was sheltering on his steel reinforced chest, which seemed to her at once as the softest and most comfortable place you could possibly want in the galaxy only. Sitting in a locked embrace on the bed like this, Shaak Ti could not see that Hego Damasks eyes had turned from green to radioactively yellow at once. He held her in his arms as she snuggled rhythmically twitching on his chest, while her middle around his best part clenched the same rhythm several times and re-opened, while he gave her more and more of his juice.

Shaak Ti was completely beside himself. She felt as if she had landed in eternity. One hot, powerful, whirling eternity that would never end anymore. At least not at this moment, these moments ... these minutes? Hours? ... In this room with this man! The moment she felt Hego Damask's juice shooting in for the first time, suddenly a huge wave of Dark Force pounded against her completely unprepared body. She winced. This wave of Dark Force took her breath away! She heard a couple of wine glasses sounding to their hearing organ in a strange sequence of notes. Was she been up? The darkness strangled her, almost crushed her, just to withdraw a bit to undulate almost gently around her like a foggy mist before a few moments later it dissolved as quickly in pleasure, as it had come.

But Shaak Ti was too dazed and too engrossed in her orgiastic ecstasy, that she would have produced even a word except the loud groan immanent to an orgasm. She felt as if her head would burst from her loud and overjoyed excitement. _'What if right now an enemy would attack in the apartment?'_ , It flashed suddenly in her mind. But this idea seemed parsec-wide away like a rarely emerging comet passing by at a great distance. Yes, love makes weak and defenseless. And that was what Shaak Ti wanted to be now! She felt her orgasm subsiding slowly.

She came off his chest and looked into his again green eyes. She saw the dissolved relaxation of happiness in them.

"I just want to see you only once without this mask," she said.

"Then I'll just hold my breath," said Hego Damask and took off his mask.

Shaak Ti saw his mouth and throat marked with scars, his nose missing its lower part. She took his elongated head in her slender hands and gave him a long intimate kiss on his mangled lips. It felt another eternity for her while doing this. After their two mouths were separated again, he immediately put back on his mask.

"It was much more awesome than I had imagined," she said with a transfigured, slightly melancholic expression.

"Do you mean the kiss?" He asked and she saw a mischievous flash in his eyes.

"Just about everything," she said simply, hugging him again.

Shaak Tis eyes fell on a chronometer, which hung on the wall. She and Hego Damask had loved each other for two standard hours indeed. The two of them stayed locked in their embrace for a while, then they sank together on the soft bed and Shaak Ti turned away from him to snuggle herself into the sheets of the blanket while he was spooning with her, his long arms wrapped around her, his face embedded between her back-lekku and her lower side-lekku. She still felt his hand patting her Montral going down further to the tip of the connected lekku. This touch did her unspeakably good. Then Shaak Ti fell asleep. After about ten minutes Hego Damask followed her into the blessed slumber.


	4. The woman of the day

The first sun beams shone finely above the still dawning red horizon of the sky-scraper-dominated skyline of Coruscant until they reached the windows of the highest floors of the pinnacled Kaldani-tower. Darth Plagueis has woken up. Almost disturbed he glanced around. His left arm was still slung around Shaak Ti and touched her right breast. Tenderly he withdrew it and sat up. He did not have slept since twenty standard years anymore. Twenty years, which he, since the terrible assault of the Maladian assassinators, spent with keeping himself awake during the nights by rituals of meditations and Sith techniques, lest no enemy will ever surprise him like this again, probably to take from him also his primary heart, the last one still remaining out of his initially three hearts since that assault.

Such a fall into sleep must not happen again! Thanks the force he had been awake before the Jedi master right next to him. Not that he really believed, that the good-willing and so fond of him Togruta would have had harmed him during his sleep! Nevertheless – this sleeping of his was against the rules, which he had set for himself! He hurried up, did his morning toilet, got dressed and ordered 11-4D to prepare an opulent breakfast for him and Shaak Ti. The dumplings he prepared but himself. This was his contribution to breakfast.

Shaak Ti was still sleeping, while the sun of Coruscant was high on the sky already. Slowly she awakened. She rubbed her eyes to open them slowly. She saw the Adegan galaxy-baldachin above her. Hesitating she sat up and glanced doubting around herself. Did she really spend a night not only in the bed but also with Hego Damask whom she was initially supposed to guard? She still felt his juices between her thighs. As she shoved away the green blanket, she saw next to some cum-spots a stain of blood. Yes, she had really done it! She rubbed her head. She did have a wild dream this night - much clearer than a dream. She was not sure about, if this was a vision of the future. But she would, she had to tell her generous host about it definitely, when the moment would be right.

She got up, to take a shower in the bath next door and to dress herself speedily. When she left the sleeping room, her host was awaiting her already at the door, to lead her into the dining-room to a richly set table.

"Good morning. Enjoy your meal, Master Jedi", he invited her to breakfast.

"Good morning", she answered tersely and ate her breakfast with delight, while 11-4D rolled next to the table, passing them by.

Shaak Ti was astounded, how easy such a breakfast after was. Hego Damask did not ask anything about the night spent together, nor did he make any allusions on it. Everything was exactly, how the Jedi-Master was wishing for - for just this once.

"That is delicious. What is it?," she asked, after she tasted one of those fine dumplings, which were draped in an argentum-colored bowl amidst the table.

"These are dumplings filled with Yagannath-fruits. Such my mother on Mygeeto used to bake for me for breakfast", he explained.

After they breakfasted for a while, Shaak Ti could not hold back any longer. There was one question left about that night, which kept her mind spinning around very much.

"There is one thing … As we had the orgasm", she began hesitantly and lowered her gaze.

"Yes", Hego Damask ushered her to go on.

"There was such a big darkness unfolding suddenly, which was absolutely constricting - only for a moment. Then it disappeared. What was it?", she asked and looked him straight into the green eyes.

"Oh …", he pretended to think about it. "It could be, that the light side of the force turns into dark power spontaneously, when instincts and desires are unleashed like this. That's why it disappeared afterwards, as how you described."

"So I have done that?" she asked dumbfounded.

"That's the only explanation coming to my mind right now", he replied.

Shaak Ti found, that this issue was done now and recurred back to something else.

"Did that Darth Plagueis, about whom you talked yesterday, found an apprentice later?"

"Well, in general it is more known about the Sith, who died a violent death than about those, who worked clandestinely and in the shadows, without leaving spectacular traces. But I strongly assume that he did found an apprentice", he replied and sucked in with his nose his bread-mush, which 11-4D had prepared for him.

"I had a strange dream this night. Not because of that night. I believe, it is about your security", Shaak Ti started her next issue.

"What did you dream about, Master Jedi?", he asked with vivid interest.

"I saw blue lightning. Like electricity. And I have heard an ugly laughter accompanying it. Everything was dark. That's all."

"Hmmm …" Darth Plagueis was really thinking now. It was known that some Jedi-Master and other force-sensitives could see the future for some moments. His own master Darth Tenebrous could do this too. So about what did Shaak Ti dream? About a technical defect, which was engineered on purpose? About the last victim of his force-lightning? Or that of his apprentice? There were other weapons, which generated lightning. Or there was natural lightning struck in. The gamut of possibilities was wide.

"How did you come to the conclusion, that this dream was about me?", he asked the Jedi.

"I don't know. I just felt something like this. There was no location to be recognized. It was just jet-dark. Actually more than jet-dark", Shaak Ti explained with a dooming voice. "It is likely that the enemy doesn't have to come in. Maybe he manipulated the electricity cables, so that with a wrong touch something bad will happen", she presumed.

"I will urge an inspection", he replied after wrinkling his forehead and pondering. "Perhaps there is a connection to the election of a new chancellor. Today is a day, which will alter all our fates. It is likely that there will be war. But at least you did fulfill your mission with bravery", he smilingly mused.

"An from now on the Sun Guard takes over again?", Shaak Ti asked, to distract from her diffuse concerns.

"Today I will mainly watch the election for the new chancellor and at the evening I and Senator Palpatine have an appointment at the Opera House. There is so much security, so I don't have any concern."

"You believe that Palpatine will win?", she asked.

"Let's say, I hope that. We need a strong chancellor for what is yet to come. Just someone like Palpatine."

"Yes, he did so much for the galaxy as senator of Naboo. Valorum is not controlling the situation at all. And then that corruption-scandal. Something has to happen", Shaak Ti replied.

"I hope too, that the senators will make the right decision. I don't have to bother about the senator of my world at least."

"How old are you, if I may ask?", Shaak Ti dared.

"If you want to know it exactly, so I'm ninety-one standard years old", Hego Damask explained with a sly smile.

Shaak Ti froze for a moment. She was just twenty-seven years old. And now it turned out, that she had slept with a man who was more than thrice as old as she was. For a moment she pondered about, how long he would be wearing this transpiratory mask, but decided that such a question, after she had asked about his age shortly before, was improper.

The two of them finished their breakfast, then the Dark Lord of the Sith brought the Jedi-Master to the door.

"I still have something for you", Hego Damask said with a secretive voice. Out of a pocket in his tunic, he pulled a comlink, like Shaak Ti has never seen before, and gave it to her.

"This special comlink is for you only. It has a tremendous reach. When you should be in great danger, so activate it and say: …" He lowered his head and whispered something into her hearing-organ, just as if somebody might hear them in the apartment. "Then the help you require will come. But keep in mind, Master Jedi: This is a onetime-comlink. To be used just once – and for you only, for nobody additionally."

Shaak Ti glanced astounded at Hego Damask. Such a gesture she had expected at least. She was the one to take care of his security!

"Will it become that bad?", she worried.

"We won't hope so", he replied with an indefinable smile.

"Then I wish you, that all your hopes for this election of the chancellor, for the sake of the galaxy and in general, shall be fulfilled", she said as a farewell.

"Thank you. May you always be well, wherever you might be", he replied.

After she turned away from him to head for the turbo lift, he closed the door from inside. He headed again for the big room, where he liked to be most. He took a big glass to fill it with heavy Sullustan wine. After some hesitation he put the bottle and the glass back to their places. No, he would enjoy the aftermath of his night with Shaak Ti this morning without some stimuli at all. There would be enough wine later – when his apprentice would be here again this evening.

It enchanted him in a strange way, that this night would be the first and the last for both of them. So he would be the first and the last man in Shaak Ti's life. Though being a virgin, this woman gave herself to him so naturally and sensually, that it was like, as if this night would be a goblet, presented by the force itself, containing all the initial happiness and all the glory of this galaxy ever. Shaak Ti had been the love in person. And she would be his forever, though of rather because there would be no more night of intimacies for her anymore. Darth Plagueis did not doubt that the young Togruta would stick to her attitudes and would abide by them.

Suddenly a memory flared up in him. A day thirty-four years ago: He just had killed his master Darth Tenebrous on the mining-planet Bal'demnic – a deed already enough to remember that day. After killing his master, Plagueis had to realize that during his killing, he had unfortunately damaged Tenebrous' ship too. The captain of the ship, which he did choose instead to return to Muunilinst, was a Togruta named Ellin Lah. In contradiction to the rest of her crew, this also very attractive Togruta harbored an indefinable grudge towards the freshly-minted head of the Sith. Plagueis skills in negotiating proved to be insufficient to break the restraint of Captain Ellin Lah. Finally she exposed her corner-teeth and drew the blaster at him; a sign, which her crew followed immediately. Plagueis found that a pity about her – a real pity.

But now Shaak Ti did made amendments for the mistake of her specimen of this long bygone time- even more than that. The Jedi-Master had made him happy. Plagueis felt, how the negative memory on the Togruta thirty-four years ago turned into a meaningless peculiarity. A circle seemed to have closed. And for this her merits he, Darth Plagueis, would give Shaak Ti at least one real chance, to keep her alive even beyond the foreseen limit, to save her from that death, which was destined for all Jedi at a time still to define. That he owed her. That was his deep wish!

When Shaak Ti was in the temple again, the building seemed somehow different to her. She felt as if she was dreaming. She knew, that this was just one night, but she was still with her thoughts with Hego Damask in the Kaldani-Tower. For the first time in her life she felt to be accepted with all her secret thoughts and wishes. She had felt – secure. That at first seemingly aloof and unattainable, later friendly and talkative Muun did abduct her at once into a realm, about which she always had known that it does exist, but for her.

There was still a song blaring into her ears from her early childhood – somewhere on Shili somebody let play a Holovid, when she had been three years old. Shortly before she has been brought to the Jedi-temple:

"Love gives without counting  
every day she can choose  
whomever her grace will touch  
Whomever seduces whomever  
But for me never will be  
what others will have every day."

That time and many years later Shaak Ti thought, that it was this song, which would determine her private live. This song was a forecast, that she would become a Jedi, with all the graces and talents she had.

And now Hego Damask did away with this until now unalterable law for her. He was the love, who chose her! Would he abolish other laws later too? Or even make better ones? Would he later really take part in the creation of a new army for the whole republic? An army, who would fight on the side of the Jedi? Shaak Ti felt at once the power and the optimism inside, to take and to teach a new Padawan soon. From now on everything seemed possible to her.

She went into her chamber for meditation and to regain her inner core. The spiritual aloof core, to remind. Three hours later at noon she headed for the cantina of the temple.

Master Yoda was passing her by. He held a tablet in his green three-fingered hands, on which was a plate with undefinable food with a strange smell. His daily food, which was prepared especially for him. With a friendly gesture he urged Shaak Ti to follow him. She went after him until they reached a table, where already Master Even Piell, Master Yaddle, Kit Fisto and the Cerean Ki-Adi Mundi sat.

"Introduce to you – I may – the woman of the day – Master Shaak Ti! By her yesterday mission – a big donation of Damask Holdings on the bank-account of the Jedi-Temple – today has arrived. Finally the newest Sorosuub-luxury-shuttle – we can afford – for especially representable missions", Yoda exclaimed and everyone at the table clapped his or her hands.

"He – did pay for it?", Shaak Ti asked worried.

"Mmmm … usual that is … when rich people like him ask the Temple for special missions. This – you knew not?", Yoda asked back palpably amused.

"Special missions?", Shaak Ti asked dumbfounded.

"Master Jorus C'baoth – to Rodia I sent him – instead of you. Because Hego Damask – you he wanted", Yoda explained with a casualness, that shocked Shaak Ti.

She hid her shock behind a proud aloof expression, which she maintained during the whole meeting with her Jedi-colleagues in the cantina.

Was the moral in the Jedi-Temple already sunken like that? Did the Jedi need Hego Damask's credits that much? Or did Yoda not realize in all his aloofness and serenity of eight-hundred years, what she had done that night? Shaak Ti suddenly felt like being used by all sides. Especially by Hego Damask, who had pretended as if she was the one to seduce him. _'Is that really your wish?"_ , she heard his muted, soft velvety voice asking her last night. No! It was _his_ wish! Already from the start!

Yoda made a gesture like to pad her shoulders to honor her. He seemed to be joyful and friendly as ever. No, Master Yoda did not have a clue about, what happened yesterday in the apartment of Hego Damask. And the other Jedi around her either. And it shall remain like this, Shaak Ti swore to herself.

Stop! What was that? Did the brownish Master Yaddle twinkle Master Yoda in a conspiring way? She should later talk seriously with Master Dooku. He was it, who praised Hego Damask that euphorically – just like a pimp! But everything being said and done in his apartment felt so true and so honest - and so good. How could somebody probably provide credits for such ever?!

With an inner turmoil Shaak Ti went to the lightsaber-training-room, to duel herself with a simulated opponent – to prove and to hone her sword-abilities. Such she was alone but could still distract herself in a productive manner. After about ten minutes she made the virtual green Twi'lek unable to defend himself anymore. He surrendered. Uncalled a picture of Hego Damask glided before her inner eye. He didn't look that old like ninety-one standard years, like he had told her. But Hego Damasks palpable wisdom and his maturity were in an almost contradiction to his outer appearance. She recalled the legend of Darth Plagueis, about which the Muun has told her yesterday. Darth Plagueis could stop the process of aging via the manipulation of the midi-chlorians. Was that really a legend only? Or did this Sith pass his knowledge on? To other people than his apprentice? No! Hego Damask surely led a very healthy way of life, did much sports and had extraordinary good genes! She left the training room and returned to her chamber.

Back in her chamber, she made herself a Cassis-tea. While she poured in a cup of the red tea, she asked herself, how she and Hego Damask would have ever met if he would not have asked the Temple about such a special mission of hers … No! Nothing was wrong with this mission – with this night! Hego Damask did fulfill a wish of her heart. And – Credits or not – it has been a damn good night! This night was above all else! It was the will of the force, that she had met Hego Damask. Master Dooku had been right. She was chosen!


	5. The beginning of the end

**At first let me say sorry for not updating this translation of my story for such a long time - a bit over two years!**

 **This chapter is quite long and I write many other stories. So this fell a bit into oblivion - until today. I did translate some passages from the Darth Plagueis-novel into English by myself because I don't have the English original version, just in case somebody spots any difference there. And now enjoy!**

* * *

 _Half a day later, evening_

Shaak Ti was watching with Master Luminara Unduli the chancellor-election in the Holo-Net. The Mirialan did have a Holonet-receiver in her room – for Shaak Ti a renounceable luxury – but not this evening.

"Could we switch to the live-transmission into the opera, please?", the Togruta asked the Mirialan.

"Why that?", Unduli asked surprised.

"Senator Palpatine of Naboo is in the opera-performance from Mon Cala today. I want to see him just once, before he is becoming chancellor – or not", Shaak Ti explained with bright eyes.

"I didn't know you were interested in Palpatine like that at all", the Mirialan responded even more surprised.

They switched the channel as wished. The performance of the ballet had already begun. In a big, hovering sphere one could see colorful strings floating around in several patterns. After a while the holo-cam did turn to the VIP-lodge, where the senator of Naboo was sitting – next to the tall Muun with the transpiratory mask, whom Shaak Ti did see just this morning live. With her deep blue eyes Luminara Unduli peered furtively towards Shaak Ti, who revealed a mesmerized glance upon her red-white face, her lips slightly parted.

"Oh, you really wish him to become chancellor, don't you?", she kidded her Togruta colleague.

"Many people say that he is the only hope for the galaxy", Shaak Ti replied with a faraway look.

"May I switch back now?", Luminara pressed slightly.

"Just let me hear this passage, which they are playing right now", Shaak Ti tried to gain some more time.

When the Mirialan did switch the channel finally, Shaak Ti's thoughts still were somewhere else.

Darth Plagueis was in good mood, when he returned with his apprentice to his apartment in the Kaldani-Tower. The dinner, Orn Free Taa, Senator of Ryloth, did spend in a private room after the election, had been lavish and good. For the coming nocturnal hours, 11-4D had opened a bottle of wine, of which Plagueis let him pour something into his glass, where the Muun let the liquid twirl a bit.

"Sullustan – half a century old", he declared proudly, while 11-4D filled another goblet for his apprentice as well.

"It is your merit alone, that all those efforts bear fruits in the end, Darth Plagueis", Sidious said, letting himself sink into one armchair.

"Thanks to my guidance and your charisma, we soon will be in a position, to implement also the last act of the Grand Plan of the Sith", Plagueis stated with an animating voice and took a sip from his wine glass.

"Then let's drink on the implementation of the last act of the Grand Plan", Sidious replied elatedly and made a half circle with the hand holding the glass towards his master, to indicate a cheer – a gesture replied by Plagueis immediately. Then only Sidious took a sip of the noble wine too.

"I assume you already have developed some thoughts about your ascension speech before the senate", Plagueis said, while he ushered 11-4D to bring another bottle of wine.

"I did write down some keywords", Sidious replied. "Should I really spoil your surprise?", he asked with a boyish grin.

"Why not?"

On this encouragement by his master, Sidious begun to outline his prepared sketch of the speech, which he would hold as newly minted chancellor before the senate. It was obvious that he wouldn't miss the opportunity to introduce his ally Hego Damask as co-chancellor – an absolute novelty in the parliamentary history of the Republic.

"… and it was also Hego Damask, who did transform the Trade Federation", Plagueis heard Sidious recite.

"This is not the time to mention the Trade Federation, my apprentice", Plagueis rectified Sidious and let 11-4D re-fill his glass of wine, in order to take another big sip with his nose.

Sidious started to deliver his speech in many new or slightly modified variants. As time went by, his voice turned deeper, more monotonous, which made Plagueis tired finally. Two times already he had recommended Sidious to stop. But Sidious always found a new detail to amend or to alter.

"That's enough so far", Plagueis tried a last time, while his third glass of wine was going to become empty. "Presumably it is the best for you to return home and rest for some hours, before …"

"Just one more time – right from the start", Sidious did insist.

"From the start?", Plagueis scoffed.

"Lord Plagueis, you did say yourself, that you will not rest until our victory is a done deal, didn't you?"

"That's true and I'm sticking to it, Darth Sidious", the Muun did surrender.

He let fill 11-4D his glass for a fourth time. As usual he took the goblet to his nose, to take a deep sip. As he tried to perch it on the side-desk, it set up, soaking the blanket with its red load. Plagueis was just too weak and too sleepy, to take notice anymore. His eyes did flutter shortly, then they closed and he sank into a blissful slumber.

His wake-up was rough, when he was hit by beams of electricity. As Darth Plagueis opened his eyes again, he saw his apprentice standing before him, the hands stretched out, while out of them blue bolts of force-lightning did crawl towards his face. His yellow-turned eyes sliced through the blue-hued web of electricity, to meet the bright shining yellow eyes of Darth Sidious, grinning at him diabolically.

' _He can't do this. He but needs me!'_ , it echoed through his elongated scull. He looked up at his apprentice. Anger and hatred had distorted Sidious' face into an ugly grimace. Finally the beast, he always had known to dwell inside his apprentice, came out thoroughly. Young Palpatine must have looked quite the same thirty-two years before, when he, Plagueis, had told him more or less clear to get rid of his family, which was done by the young Naboo with one swift strike.

The Muun tried to gather his forces to unleash a force-storm, but he had to realize, that the alcohol did paralyze his limbs – his powers.

"So let me start with the second, unofficial part of my speech, you useless old fool!", he heard boom his apprentice victoriously.

"It was Hego Damask alias Darth Plagueis, who came to Naboo, resolved to bleed my planet until the last drop of plasma, who did impose the Trade Federation as overseer!"

' _Darth Sidious as the avenger of the exploited and the suppressed ones – that role did fit his apprentice during his last days as senator of Naboo really well'_ , Plagueis mused with an inward bitter smile.

"Plagueis, who turned away from the Grand Plan, to focus on himself and his immortality for twenty years so complacently, while I pulled the strings on Coruscant and elsewhere", Sidious went on.

' _But you could have gained much profit from my researches, my apprentice. I would have made you immortal too – at my side. Will you really spurn this? For perhaps forty years to rule? Who of us is complacent right now?'_ , Plagueis thought back, still unable to speak, not to speak of acting.

"Plagueis, who had the insolence to scold with his apprentice to have instilled too much pride in the killer, whom he raised and thought all by himself!", Sidious ranted on.

' _But Maul did fail on Tatooine. And the young Skywalker is with the Jedi now. That you do know as much as I do. And still we don't know what Maul will or even can achieve on Naboo'_ , Plagueis thought back.

"Plagueis, who did have the frivolity to abuse our new Sith-candidate Dooku as a mere pimp, that the fine Magister may entertain himself here with a young Jedi Master, while I was busy with bringing on the way no less than the rule of the Sith over the galaxy …!"

' _That's not Sidious's business!'_ , Plagueis thought enraged. _'I did not deny him to wander around on remote worlds for months, without asking him about where with whom. Yes, I did trust him. Why he is bothered by this one night? Did Dooku eventually …?'_

He couldn't contemplate further about, to whom Dooku owed his final loyalty, because Sidious, after revealing this moral failing of his master, went on with his suing suada.

"You may ask yourself probably: When did he change like this? The truth is that I did not change at all. I was like this always - since you did recruit me at Naboo. I had to learn from you – no more, no less. What took you to the thought, that I would need you after that any longer? Presumably it was your vanity, your unbelievable complacency. Since you never was more than one of those petty monsters in a Dejarik-game, played and won by a true master – the Sith'ari!"

Sidious let out a cruel laughter.

"So think about. Let pass revue the events of the past, if you still can: Maul, the Neimoidians, Naboo, a clone army, the fallen Jedi Dooku, your rendezvous yesterday with Jedi Master Shaak Ti … you believe, that were all your ideas, but indeed they were all mine, I did suggest you in such a subtle way, that you proposed them back to me, convinced that all this was to be assigned to you alone."

Sidious make an artificial break, before he proceeded.

' _That's not true!'_ , Plagueis thought. _'No, that can't be! Not the clone army! Not Shaak Ti!'_

Darth Plagueis rose, stood tall in front of his challenger. He realized that he gained no hold, that he did waver. He felt his seeking hand streaking a nearby statue, which fell off its socket rumbling. Plagueis stumbled back again, to plummet back on the sofa, where he had been sitting before.

"You are much too trusting, Plagueis. No Sith would ever give much store by anybody else. That is known for long. There is only one way – my way! … Oh, yes, just try to concentrate your Midi-Chlorians, to configure them anew."

' _He's jealous. I still can remember his unbelieving look at Aborah, when I brought Venamis back to life. He wanted to perform such too, but didn't have the talent for this'_ , Plagueis thought melancholically.

"To your consolation, I can tell you that I would have never made it without you. But now, where I did win, I do not need a co-chancellor, when I will bring to reality the rest of the Grand Plan … Shaak Ti was the last nail to your coffin, I still needed to get rid of you. Well, tell me, Plagueis: Did the pretty young Jedi Master did occupy you that much last night that after twenty standard years you did need a nap today?"

' _He's envious, so pretty envious. He has always been like that'_ , Plagueis mused.

"Now you will get you nap – a very long one … Yeah, it is really a tragedy! You were but so wise, that you could rule over the life and death of others, but not your own … Plagueis the Wise, who really did deserve that name, but forgot to ensure his place in the world he wanted to create, because in his pride he didn't realize, that also he wasn't needed one day … and now rest in your grave, Plagueis."

From his fingertips, Darth Sidious let shoot out another shower of force-lightning onto his half-sitting – half-lying victim.

' _He's serious about it. He will really kill me!'_ , the certainty of his soon doom dawned to the still supreme Dark Lord of the Sith. _'Is he especially clever – or especially stupid, in the wake of the eternal power and glory I could have bestowed upon him?'_

In that very moment Plagueis realized that all the time during Sidious' monologue he did think on his apprentice. Sidious was right: He set to much store by others! And now he realized that Sidious was correct in another point too. He in his kind as a Muun was too much abiding to agreements and he misguidedly had expect the same from other, far less agreement-abiding people.

' _But I have to warn you'_ , the words of his own master Darth Tenebrous on Bal'demnic thirty-four years before crossed his waning mind.

' _What is it you want to warn me of, Master?'_

' _You'_ , had Tenebrous replied, before Plagueis did reveal himself as his master's conqueror, breaking the old, already hurt Bith's neck.

Sidious' thunderstorm of force-lightning did not cease. But still through the crackling, rattling noises of the blue bolts of his apprentice Plagueis's sharp ears did notice the short mechanical howl, followed by the cease of a long accustomed sound. From the corners of his more and more clouded eyes he got the affirmation. One of Sidious' bolts did hit the vacuum-cleaning droid, causing an irreparable shortcut.

' _No, it was a forgivable sin, to give Shaak Ti the comlink. She alone will not hamper the Grand Plan'_ , was his last thought.

Darth Plagueis' yellow eyes nearly did bulge out of its caves, then they broke.

Sidious did glance to 11-4D, who was about to come near the place of murder, but Sidious ushered him to stop where he stood.

"We'll find you a new home and a new shell, droid."

11-4D looked first to the Muun, then to the Human.

"Yes, Master Palpatine", he finally replied with his tinny voice.

Palpatine headed for the door, to return to his apartment. Before he left, he called Sate Pestage. There were traces to wipe out.

At midnight Shaak Ti finally was in bed. She was about to drift away, when she had again that dream about the blue lightning in the dark. And there was again that laughter - mean and ugly. She rose in her bed shrugging. She could feel a certain disturbance in the force and she felt it was not a good one. Her whole body ached, her heart convulsed. There was also that tremendous darkness – like in that dream – like in … No! That could not be! Hego Damask was not involved in that! She needed two more hours to find sleep finally.

It was early morning when the first news from Theed trailed in. Master Yoda, Shaak Ti and some other Jedi Masters and their Padawans were hanging out in front of the Holo-screen to watch the breaking news from the Holo-Net. When the picture of Obi-Wan Kenobi showed up, who gave a summary of the latest events, in which he was involved crucially, the Jedi in front of the screen spent spontaneous applause.

"He gave the Zabrak what he deserved to the full", Mace Windu said.

"He avenged the death of his master", Padawan Barriss Offee chimed in.

"My Padawan, revenge is not the engine to drive a Jedi's deeds!", her master Luminara Unduli with her soft, but relentless voice did correct her before all the others and Shaak Ti nodded duly.

"I felt a bad disturbance in the force this night", the Togruta said finally.

"Surely because of the death of Qui-Gon Jinn. I felt it too", Mace Windu replied.

"No, it was very dark. As dark as the Dark Side of the Force ever could be", she explained.

"My dear, you won't but have felt the death of that Darth Maul?", Luminara Unduli said amused.

"That was not funny!", Shaak Ti shot back. "And it was not far away like at Naboo. It was here on Coruscant!"

"I think we all have to leave behind us that difficult day", Mace Windu said soothingly . "We should wait first, what Palpatine will do after he was elected chancellor now."

Shaak Ti had tried to reach Master Dooku since yesterday. But Dooku didn't serve his comlink, nor did he return to the temple. Shaak Ti wanted to console him because his last Padawan was gutted by this ominous Sith named Darth Maul. Was Dooku that unsettled after Qui-Gon Jinn's death, that he didn't want to see or to speak with anyone?

A bit lost, the slender Togruta walked along the ample floors of the temple, heading towards the middle tower without knowing what she wanted there. Master Oppo Rancisis crossed her way. The Thisspiasian with the serpent-like body and his head crowned with entangled white hair gestured Shaak Ti to listen to him.

"I did read your thoughts, my dear. You are not the only one having these thoughts. Master Yoda did summon a council session. Dooku did declare that he is leaving the Order and will adopt his hereditary title of a Count. He wants to serve the republic in a more direct approach now", Rancisis added in a mocking manner.

"Who is serving the republic in a more direct and active way than the Jedi?", Shaak Ti asked back unbelieving.

"Well, he always thought, he is something special", the serpent-like Thisspiasian replied with a disparaging grin.

"It is not because of Qui-Gon?", Shaak Ti asked.

"Would you leave the Order because of such?"

"Of course not", she replied, stating the matter of course required to show after questions like this.

Now Shaak Ti knew what she wanted to know.

 _Another day later_

Shaak Ti sat in the cantina of the Temple for lunch. A Holo-Screen hanging on the wall, spat out the latest news after the election of Palpatine as chancellor of the Republic and the victory of the Jedi and the military forces of the royal palace at Naboo. Padmé Amidala thanked in a moving, yet monotonous voice all her supporters. Her picture faded out. Soon the news-time would be over. Fourteen minutes of that transmission out of fifteen were already done.

"And at last a report from the capital: As it came to be known today only, two days ago Hego Damask, CEO of Damask Holdings and important member of the Intergalactic Banking Clan have died in his apartment in the Kaldani-Spires here on Coruscant. As cause of death, medics assume a defect of the breathing mode integrated in his transpiratory mask. And now the weather on the capital planet …"

Shaak Ti let her fork sink. She couldn't eat anymore. She rose from her table to head for the training ground to watch the younglings training the lightsaber combat. She pondered about who would be capable to become her next Padawan. Yes, that human woman with the brown hair and the blue eyes would be a good match. But still she would not decide. The training did end. She called Master Luminara Unduli.

"Do you like to train the use of the Force with me a bit?", she asked the blue holo-image of the green-skinned Mirialan with the prominent chin-tattoos.

"In one hour I have time for three hours. I will bring along my Padawan", she heard Unduli say.

Relieved she broke off the connection. This day was saved at least. Not that she wouldn't plan her days at all. But today was no ordinary day. It had to be filled to the brim that she would not fall into silly and useless thoughts. It was just one night. And she wanted to think back on it with joy, not with bad feelings. But that was impossible after that Holo-News broadcast.

 _After another day_

Shaak Ti hung over the closet's bowl and vomited – in the early morning. She had but eaten as usually. Nexu meat with some cucumbers and noodles – nothing strange or exotic. She shivered and a new flash of yellow mud was pressed out of her throat. She didn't had eat that much! Where did it all come from?

Her comlink was humming. She saw that Master Yoda personally was in waiting status. But she was too week, too shaky, to converse with the Grand Master in due formality. Thus she let it hum. She would call back later.

After an hour finally she felt better.

"Shaak Ti, in the central tower for a session of emergency - immediately we you await", she heard Yoda's voice.

She put herself in a presentable state and left her chamber. She felt creepy, that she was called to a council's session thus suddenly. She presumed nothing good. Creepy was also the demise of Hego Damask so soon after she had been in his apartment.

When she entered the big, round room in the middle tower of the Jedi-Temple, Master Yoda and the rest of the council members were already present. How long did they wait for her?

"Pale – you are – well you do feel?", Yoda asked compassionately.

"Thanks, it is o.k. I hope you didn't have to wait too long for me", she replied.

"What in relation to the long existence of our order – one hour is?", Yoda replied cheerfully.

' _I had let wait the council for one whole hour!'_ it shot through her. What was that important that the council waited that long for her, who was not even a member of it?!

"Master Dooku – disappear he did, after to Hego Damask he brought you. From Dooku something heard you had?", Yoda went to the core of the matter.

"No, I didn't have seen him since, nor did he answer his comlink, when I tried to reach him."

"Why Dooku you wanted to contact?", Yoda asked further.

"I wanted to express my condolence about his former Padawan's death."

"Proofs - we have, that with Damask Dooku had met, before the Order - he left yesterday."

Shaak Ti looked from one council member to the next without uttering anything.

Master Adi Gallia took up the word. "Did you know about the gathering, which took place in the Perlemian Orbital Station over Coruscant four days ago?"

"I heard about it but was not present", the Togruta answered.

The slim, white head-tentacles of Adi Gallia shivered, while she was listening to Shaak Ti.

"I was present during that meeting", Gallia said. "I could see how during that meeting, Master Sifo-Dyas talked with Magister Damask very vividly, bevor he disappeared."

The blue eyes of the Tolothian pierced into the violet ones of Shaak Ti during those words.

"I did see it in the Holo-Net yesterday", Shaak Ti replied composedly.

"What have you seen in the Holo-Net?", Master Jorus C'baoth asked suspiciously, shaking his white-haired head.

"The news of the death of Hego Damask", the Togruta answered.

"That's not what Master Adi Gallia meant!", Master Even Piell butted in, while his remaining right blue eye sparkled at her.

"I spoke about the disappearing of Master Sifo-Dyas", Adi Gallia explained further. "He told the Council that he had to undertake a longer mission in the Outer Rim, about whose content he wanted to inform the Council later after its fulfilment. But he didn't. Und since then we haven't received any life sign from him, nor does he react to our tries to contact him."

Shaak Ti did not reply. She had no idea, where Dooku was, nor did she have any contact with Master Sifo-Dyas that week.

"Hmmm Shaak Ti … more to say – you have?", Yoda took the lead again. "As well with Dooku as with Damask you did speak at last. Now Dooku and Sifo-Dyas – gone they are. But still here – you are. About what with Dooku and Damask – you did talk?", Yoda wanted to know.

' _Still here – I am'_ , Shaak Ti thought, while an unknown dread creeped up her spine.

"With Dooku I just talked about the next mission of Qui-Gon and my guarding mission with Magister Damask. And with Magister Damask actually about Shili and Mygeeto – and about the state of the Republic."

"Soso – about the state of the Republic …", Yoda mused. "What about the state of the Republic – Hego Damask did say?"

"That the Republic is in need of an army", _'that he would co-finance'_. But the latter she didn't tell. Why so, when he was dead already, before he could put his good intentions into reality? She tried to think of Sifo-Dyas in order that the others could not read any thoughts about what she else did discuss with Magister Damask – and what she had done with him. She did see Sifo-Dyas last time two weeks ago. The Human Jedi Master had his black hair tight up into a knot as usually and his brown eyes had looked discomforted. But as much as she tried, she couldn't remember, about what she had talked with Master Sifo-Dyas that day.

"Why – an army the Republic should need?", Yoda asked Shaak Ti.

"He was concerned about – the Republic and about the Jedi", she replied.

"And about other Jedi – Damasks did talk not?", Yoda went further.

Shaak Ti swallowed. When anyway, it had been her, who did tell Hego Damask about this or that Jedi during their comfortable come together. While he had told her only, that Palpatine was a good man. A question rose in her, if his death was really just due to the defect in his transpiratory mask.

"No, he hadn't", she answered finally. "But I believe that his death did not come by chance. I think he was murdered. The whole is much bigger than we know now."

"Hmmm … but a failure of his breathing mask the medics did state. To question this – a Jedi matter is not", Master Yoda finished the issue.

"Ended this session is." With these words Yoda allowed all participants to leave.

 _The very same day in the Kessel sector in the Outer Rim_

Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas was in good mood. On Kamino everything went as best as it ever could. The Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su and the head of the research department Ko Sai had been very obliging and more than normally friendly, when the honorable Jedi Master did mention the name of the client, who was no lesser than the Order of the Jedi itself. When he did say the name of the financier too, the eyes of both became bright in restrained joy.

"Magister Hego Damask is an appreciated guest we like to see here on our planet. His wish is our command", Lama Su had affirmed.

Such Sifo-Dyas never had seen on both during his visits to the planet of eternal rain before. That had been genuine Kaminoan feelings!

The coronation of it all was, when Sifo-Dyas did hand over the two quipus, artistically slung wool-strands, whose knots did keep a complicated code, which could decipher only the bank on Muunilinst, in which the account was conducted, to which the two quipus were assigned. Hence the contract had become perfect - ripe for signing. Pride swallowed up in Sifo-Dyas. He did make it – almost. Soon the Republic would become a better one. When he strode back to his shuttle through the whiplashing rain of Kamino – he felt that rain to be the blissful shower, which soon would lead to the wellbeing of the whole Republic.

The shuttle T-6 No. 775519 did exit the hyperspace. Before the eyes of Sifo-Dyas laid the lilac planet of Oba Diah, where he had to meet the leader of the Pyke syndicate, to hand over a peace offer from Chancellor Finis Valorum, whose acceptance would guarantee that the spice-gangsters would not meddle into the affairs of the capital planet anymore.

"Do you have the credits handy?", he asked Silman, the assistant of Valorum, who accompanied him during this secret mission, of which nobody knew beside his friend Dooku and of course the Chancellor.

Sifo-Dyas was looking for a good place for landing on Oba Diah … when his holo-projecor hummed. Master Yoda wanted to speak with him personally. When he didn't want to cause suspicion he had to answer the call.

"Master Sifo-Dyas, to speak to you – a joy it is", Yoda started the conversation.

"I will be back on Coruscant tomorrow, Master Yoda", the black haired Jedi Master replied, while his brown eyes shone expectingly.

"Not home you shall come. Travel to Felucia – you will. Feuding jungle tribes – pacify you must!", Yoda explained the newest mission.

"I understood and will go there even today, Master Yoda", Sifo-Dias complied.

"To hear this – I like. The force with you – may be", Yoda said, before he ended the conversation.

Five minutes later the holo-projector did hum anew. The holo-image of Dooku appeared.

"My old friend. How was the mission on Kamino?", Dooku asked.

"Very good. I'm on Oba Diah at the moment to negotiate with the Pykes. Minister Lom will grant me an audience soon."

"Then everything is going according to plan", Dooku replied satisfied.

"Not thoroughly. Yoda did contact me right before you called. I now have been assigned a mission to Felucia – to pacify Jungle Felucians", Dooku heard Sifo-Dyas's slightly unnerved voice.

Dooku hid his anger about this news behind a jovial smile. This mission would become riskier than he had thought. And so he forged an amendment to his initial plan.

Sifo-Dyas's ship was just hovering between Oba Diah and a moon of that planet, when the Jedi spotted the escort, which was supposed to bring him to Minister Lom Pyke's residence. His com-station beeped, indicating that one of the ships wanted to communicate with him.

"Here is pilot Nam Tyco speaking on behalf of the orbital control of Oba Diah. Identify yourself!"

"Here is Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, accompanied by Taras Silman, personal assistant of the Galactic Chancellor Finis Valorum. We have an appointment with Minister Lom Pyke here on Oba Diah."

"Good", the Pyke replied. "Just follow us!"

While adapting his course slightly to fit into the formation of the vessels, the Jedi was about to wonder why the Pykes did send six bulky assault-ships which surrounded the Jedi's shuttle now. Didn't the Pykes trust the Republic? Or did they fear some attack from outside? Red bolts of laser-fire ended Sifo-Dyas's thoughts - hitting the carbon-metallic surface of the shuttle. The Jedi Master knew that the deflector shields couldn't defy for long the steady, heavy barrage, hammering from all sides against the T6-shuttle. Another crimson bolt hit the ship – a really serious one. A sharp hiss from behind told Sifo-Dyas the hyperspace drive was hit and went out of service. Now he couldn't even flee. He had just one chance. He had to land, to bring himself and Silman into a save covering and call for help. Fighting the odds he headed to the spotted landing place. Soon he would land.

The fire ceased and the assault-ships did turn away. Sifo-Dyas took in a deep breath and concentrated. Surely they presumed the job done – and he and Silman could need the break. The formation of mountains there on the moon looked quite good for an undisturbed stop-over and so he headed for it. When the shuttle approached the hoped save haven, some green bolts came out of nowhere. They hit the transparisteel window of the cockpit. The window smashed and the Jedi and his companion could breathe the thin atmosphere of Oba Diah's moon. Apparently somebody did even wait on the moon for them. But who? Sifo-Dyas activated his blue lightsaber, deflecting some of the heavy green bolts, coming from hidden canons, carved into the withered moon-stone, as he spotted on the second glance, but they were too many of them. One of the long laser bolts hit his chest. The Jedi fell with his chair behind and was dead at once, while Silman sat perched in the back of the shuttle – waiting for his doom to come too.

Completing his mission Dooku looked out into the orbit of the planet Oba Diah. His Punworcca-solar-sailor had fallen out from hyperspace, as Minister Lom had contacted him to report, that the targeted person had been found and killed. As proof the Pyke hold up the lightsaber of the murdered Jedi.

Time had come for Dooku, to check the place of the doom of his former friend, to erase traces, especially those, who would lead to Sifo-Dyas's former mission to Kamino. On this behalf he had already deleted every hint at Kamino, Dagobah and Dromund in the archives of the temple. He gave Lom Pyke the agreed sum of credits, then he took the corpse and the lightsaber of his killed friend with him, to head towards Felucia.

Dooku did not undertake any efforts, to broker for peace between the jungle tribes on Sifo-Dyas's behalf. He hid behind a bush and placed the corpse of his killed friend next to him in a way it was not to be seen at the first sight. Then he coaxed out some of the blue-feathered Felucians there, to suggest them danger via a mind trick. The Felucians rose their cudgels, arrows and bows, to defend themselves against the alleged danger. Just after the first wave of their arrows did leave their bows, Dooku rose behind the bush, his blue lightsaber spread to the right in the typical Makashi-stance, then he deflected the incoming arrows.

"You have killed my companion!", he accused the Felucians.

Flabbergasted the Felucians looked at him. The Jedi had but come to end their feud. And now one of the Peace-keepers of the galaxy was dead.

"In the light of this tragedy there is only one way of atonement for your transgression", Dooku said earnestly.

The Felucians looked at him, expecting even more grief. None of them said anything.

"Bring your chief here!", Dooku ordered.

The Felucians did as he commanded.

"These your men had killed my Jedi-Brother! Sentence them and burn the corpse of my brother, then the Republic will show you mercy and won't pursue you any longer. My mission here has come to an end though!", Dooku rumbled apodictically, wiping out every protest before it could ever been uttered.

The chief let line up his men and told them to report about the incident. The speeches of the blue-feathered beings were contradictory. Everybody blamed everybody. So the chief decided that all men, who did shoot at the Jedi, had to be killed by poisoned arrows. Unmoved, Dooku watched, how one sentenced after another fell lethally hit to the ground - eight men at all.

The pyre was erected. Dooku himself placed Sifo-Dyas's body upon it. He stood next to the pyre, incinerated by the Felucians a moment later. Dooku looked forlorn into the flames and mourned his friend, whose burden of death nobody had to bear but himself. After Sifo-Dyas's body had burnt to a heap of ashes and bones, Dooku headed for his solar-sailor. He set course for Coruscant, to make his entrée to the Chancellor - the new Chancellor obviously.

"I had expected you already, Count", the newly elected Galactic Chancellor Palpatine said almost cheerful, as the brown-gowned Count did enter his office.

Dooku put his cloak back to present the hilt of his fallen friend's lightsaber, which was placed on the left side of his golden ringed belt, while his own still adorned the right side.

"Not here, my friend", Palpatine rebuffed and went outside with his guest.

Both men went on a glider, bringing them to The Works, a slummed industrial quarter, where the LiMerge-Building was situated, towering over all the other buildings around.

Sidious' glider landed smoothly on the platform inside the LiMerge-Building, designed to harbor smaller ships, while the door to the ample room did close again already.

"Here one can start and land without being noticed by the spaceport authorities", Dooku assumed.

"That's how it should be", Palpatine replied with a conspiring smile.

After leaving the glider, Sidious led his guest into a room, where on the wall-shelves many old books and foliants were to be seen. Dooku found, that from the big window of that room, one had a fantastic view upon the Jedi-Temple. He could also spot some pyramids, big as fists, which stood in the upper shelves. He knew those pyramids. They were Sith-holocrons, which Yoda didn't want to be studied by his former apprentice. But gone were those times.

"The task is completed. The contract about the creation of a clone army between the Jedi and the Kaminoans is perfect. And Sifo-Dyas is dead as you wished", Dooku reported.

"Then you have proven to be worthy, Count Dooku", Palpatine stated elatedly, pronouncing the other Human's title deliberately.

"Bow down!", he ordered the one head taller and twenty standard years older man with the white hair.

Dooku complied and went on his knees before Sidious.

"I am Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith. Do you promise, that you will dedicate you, your pursuit and your estate in the future to the wellbeing of the Order of the Sith, the realization of the Grand Plan to gain the Sith the rule over the galaxy? That you want to become my apprentice?"

"Herewith I vow, that I will dedicate myself, my pursuit and all of my estate to the Order of the Sith and the realization of the Grand Plan, that the Sith shall gain the rule over the galaxy. Yes, I wish to become your apprentice", the brown-attired Count vowed and his dark-brown eyes lit up.

"Goood", Sidious purred. "Hence I will assign you the rank of my apprentice and successor in the Order of the Sith. Your new and true name will be herewith Darth Tyranus", he declared, while Dooku held his head still bowed.

"Rise, Lord Tyranus", Sidious commanded.

Dooku rose.

"As next we will provide you with a new lightsaber, which is worth your skills and your new destination", Sidious announced.

"So shall it be done, my new Master", Dooku replied with raspy voice.

Afterwards the two men left the room and went once more to the glider.

Shaak Ti had vomited once more at morning, when her comlink hummed. Master Yoda wished to speak to her. With restrained expectation she headed to the cartographic room of the Jedi-Temple. Yoda looked concerned when she entered.

"Master Sifo-Dyas – yesterday speak to him - I could", Yoda started.

"And? How is he?"

"Yesterday to the Tion-star cluster to Felucia he should travel. But successful there – he was not – as the Felucians told me. But the jungle tribes – pacify them – we must. Sifo-Dyas's mission to Felucia take – you will?", Yoda asked with concerned glance at her pale teint.

"Don't worry – I am ready, Master Yoda", Shaak Ti replied.

Yoda smiled. Shaak Ti was hiding something before him. But this would reveal itself to him in due time.

* * *

 _Author's note: All events in this chapter, except the events around Shaak Ti which sprung out from my phantasy, you can see in Ep. I of the Prequel Trilogy or you may read about it in the novel "Darth Plagueis" by James Luceno, from where for this chapter I borrowed many dialogue-citations._

 _The quipus are mentioned in Joe Schreiber's novel "Darth Maul: Lockdown"._

 _The events around Sifo-Dyas and Valorum's assistant Silman are unraveled in S. 6 of "The Clone Wars", ep. "Traces". The lightsaber of Sifo-Dyas was actually left by Dooku on the moon of Oba Diah in Sifo-Dyas's shuttle, which Dooku never entered. In my story this is a bit different._


End file.
